Netherlands: Narco-terrorism on the streets of Amsterdam
The Dutch are in shock after an assassination attempt on our best-known journalist, said Wil Thijssen in De Volkskrant (Netherlands). Peter Rudolf de Vries, 64, had just left a TV studio in central Amsterdam last week when he was shot five times—including once to the head. He is now fighting for his life in the hospital. The dashing host of a former prime-time investigative reporting show, de Vries is synonymous with the search for truth and justice. He tracked down one of the crooks who kidnapped beer magnate Freddy Heineken in 1983 and has advised witnesses in numerous trials. In recent years, de Vries has been a confidant of Nabil B., a former member of a Dutch-Moroccan drug gang who is testifying against his old associates. Many believe that gang is behind the shooting. Two suspects were quickly arrested for the hit: Kamil Pawel E., a 35-year-old Polish national who allegedly drove the getaway car, and Delano Geerman, 21, a Dutch rapper allegedly paid $175,000 to pull the trigger. De Vries’ fans have placed 4,000 white roses in an Amsterdam square, and they want to know: “Why didn’t the state protect him?”
The growing power of drug gangs is the “dark, dangerous side of Dutch tolerance,” said Ben Coates in Politico.eu (Belgium). Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but since the 1970s authorities have tolerated its sale and use, “including in the famous Amsterdam ‘coffee shops’ where people consume a lot more than just coffee.” As drug tourism to Amsterdam boomed, criminal gangs took over the weed cafés and began dealing cocaine and heroin, shipping their wares across Europe via Dutch ports. With so much money at stake, “violent gang disputes” have erupted and “spilled over to affect reporters and the public.” The Nabil B. case had already seen two murders: Nabil’s brother in 2018 and his attorney the following year. Dutch police complain that their country is becoming “a narco-state.” The Netherlands should take a lesson from Italy, said Maarten van Aalderen in De Telegraaf (Netherlands). It’s been decades since the Mafia murdered a politician, judge, or journalist there. Why? Because Italy went after murderous mafiosi with “exceptional harshness,” locking them away for life in monitored cells with just one hour a month of visitation behind glass. Faced with losing their assets and their freedom, mobsters changed tactics and opted for less bloodshed.
We can’t police our way out of this, said Marian Husken in NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands). We effectively abandoned the “policy of tolerance” in the late 1980s and began arresting drug lords. Others soon took their place, “because where there is demand, there will be supply.” Rather than continuing a failed “war on drugs,” we need to look at total legalization and regulation. That doesn’t mean allowing a free-for-all drug orgy: We should simultaneously pour money into programs to treat addiction. It was a public health campaign that won the fight against Big Tobacco, after all, and now few Dutch smoke. We’ve tried everything else— why not “give the doctor precedence over the policeman”?